The 10 most under-appreciated players of the 1980s: #7 Mark Eichhorn

It turns out that this top-10 list is a little Blue Jays-heavy, since this is already our second guy from Toronto just 4 players in.

Anyway, if you go read that post I wrote, you'll see that the crux of my argument about Eichhorn is that he was an amazing middle reliever, probably one of the top 5 from the last 30 years. Since he was never a full-time closer, he simply wasn't on the radar of a lot of people.

But since this post is specifically about the 1980s, let's take a quick look at what he did in that decade.

Other than 7 games in 1982, Eichhorn didn't get going in the majors until 1986, giving him just 4 full seasons in the 1980s. And two of those seasons, 1988 and 1989, were the worst of his career. But 1986 and 1987 were a good look at what he would later do in the 1990s.

Ummm, that's a pretty sizable lead. Only the late Frank Williams bested Eichhorn's ERA+ out of this group.

That's about all we can say about Eichhorn's 1980s achievements, but he went on to post a number of excellent seasons in the 1990s as well.

The card above is from the 1986 Donruss "The Rookies" set, similar to Topps' Traded sets but featuring only rookies as opposed to established major leaguers who switched teams. The design is very similar to the regular 1986 Donruss release, except with a background color that is more green than blue and the "The Rookies" logo placed on each card.